A Beautiful Film - Cinema Paradiso

I love movies, the cinema and TV series. To tell you the truth, I have a real passion for movies and I would like to spend many hours watching movies of different kinds - if only I had more time! One of the most beautiful films I've seen recently is called "Cinema Paradiso", a 1988 film written and directed by Giuseppe Tornatore, which in 1990 won the Oscar for best foreign film.

Since leaving the village where he is originally from with no intention of returning, Salvatore Di Vita has lived for thirty years in Rome where he has become a well-known film director. One night, when he returns home, he discovers some news about the death of a certain Alfredo, and the memory of his childhood resumes throughout the night.

His memories take him back to the end of World War II, where in a small village in Sicily called Giancaldo, cinema is the only fun. We are at the end of the forties. He is a poor child who lives with his sister and mother, waiting for his father, who is lost, to return from Russia. Salvatore is nicknamed Toto and he helps the manager of the movie theatre "Cinema Paradiso" who has to edit the films on behalf of Don Adelfio the parish priest. Don Adelfio orders all the scenes in the movies he finds unsuitable to be censored. Salvatore tries in vain to secretly watch the private screenings for the priest and to steal some scenes cut off by the projectionist Alfredo. The latter is an illiterate man with whom Salvatore tries to make friends with, despite his mother's disapproval and Alfredo's bitter attitude. On the occasion of his final primary school exam, which Alfredo also participates in, Salvatore finally makes an agreement with him: the child will give Alfredo the results of the test, but in return the projectionist will have to teach Salvatore all the tricks of the trade.

One evening, the audience was unhappy and booing loudly at the second show as many scenes had been cut so Alfredo and Salvatore decided to satisfy them by projecting the film on the wall of a house in the village square. A man's distraction is the cause of a fire that spreads quickly into the projection cabin. Salvatore manages to save his friend, who unfortunately loses his sight. Thanks to the intervention of a millionaire, Spaccafico, the movie theater is rebuilt and takes the name of "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso". Thus begins a new era for this cinema in which the child works, which from now on will project no more censored films.

Salvatore, who has become a teenager, meets Elena, student and daughter of the local bank manager, and falls in love with her. Her parents don't like their relationship and they decide to move. Meanwhile, the boy is called to complete Military Service in the army in Rome and completely loses contact with Elena. Returning to Sicily, he visits Alfredo, who advises him to abandon his native land forever. During this last memory, Salvatore's mind returns to reality: despite being a rich and famous director he is disappointed with his life and decides to leave for Sicily.

The funeral of Alfredo becomes an opportunity to confront his past and the people who had populated his childhood. Even the New Cinema Paradiso, now closed and unused for six years, has lost its splendour, and Salvatore can only stand still as it is demolished. Salvatore also has the opportunity to meet Elena again, but only for the last time: she is now married to an old schoolmate of his. After discovering that they didn't meet again due to a series of coincidences (and Alfredo's intervention), they spend a night of passion together but are destined to stay apart, and he can only take back to Rome a film reel that was left for him by Alfredo before his death: this contains a set of kisses censored by Don Adelfio and his projection moves Salvatore as those pictures help him remember his childhood.

I think that these film is one of the most touching film that I have ever seen and I'd like to advise to see everyone this film.